Thursday, June 02, 2011

The Morning Drill: June 2, 2011

Caffeine may perk you up mentally, but it could have the opposite effect on your fallopian tubes, leading researchers to wonder whether women who drink coffee, tea and soda may have a harder time getting pregnant.

Researchers at the University of Nevada examined this possibility - in mice, not women - and concluded that caffeine stymies specialized cells in the muscular walls of the fallopian tubes, which transport eggs from a woman's ovaries to her uterus. The cells are responsible for squeezing the eggs along their journey; if they don't allow the tubes to contract efficiently, the eggs can't reach the womb, according to the research published last week in the British Journal of Pharmacology.

When I walked into the offices of Dr. Ken Cirka, I was looking for cleaner teeth, not material for an Ars Technica story. I needed a new dentist, and Yelp says Dr. Cirka is one of the best in the Philadelphia area. The receptionist handed me a clipboard with forms to fill out. After the usual patient information form, there was a "mutual privacy agreement" that asked me to transfer ownership of any public commentary I might write in the future to Dr. Cirka. Surprised and a little outraged by this, I got into a lengthy discussion with Dr. Cirka's office manager that ended in me refusing to sign and her showing me the door.

The agreement is based on a template supplied by an organization called Medical Justice, and similar agreements have been popping up in doctors' offices across the country. And although Medical Justice and Dr. Cirka both claim otherwise, it seems pretty obvious that the agreements are designed to help medical professionals censor their patients' reviews.

Two new John Hopkins studies say that the popular Atkins-type diets consisting of low-carb and high-fat meal plans pose no heart health risk for the obese.

Researchers from the Heart and Vascular Institute at John Hopkins University conducted two separate studies examining the relationship between popular diets, weight loss, and heart health. Lead researcher on the study and exercise physiologist Kerry Stewart, Ed.D. said that perhaps an overemphasis on low-fat diets in the United States has contributed to the obesity epidemic in the US. In a press release statement they explain that low-fat dieting encourages the over-consumption of low-fat foods, which tend to be less filling.